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'Sweet Populism' Awaits Its Leader

Populists on the right and the left have failed to capture the American imagination the way Ronald Reagan did.

By

Ted McAllister

Aug. 5, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET

We are in a populist moment, as political strategists of every ideological strain recognize. No leader and no party has harnessed this populist energy, though it surges around every political issue, every election. Our politics will become increasingly convoluted until someone captures and focuses this energy, giving the populist movement a vision for the future consistent with a widely received version of the past. This is a sweet populism, one that affirms American society and institutions.